New grants person: I would like to not do the grants role any more, I will not have time and would like to reduce my forest involvement right down to maybe the odd day shift in the kitchen on the weekend for at least the next few months. Someone suitably experienced please take it over from me. Preferably someone from the forest working group, since the role has come to encompass bottom-lining the Behind The Scenes Working Group. It's a simple job and not much work, application emails sent to grants@theforest will be forwarded to you, you respond to let the person know their application has been received and when they can expect to hear back, you post the application in full to the Projects & Grants forum for discussion (stripping any contact details or other private info first), you post a notification like this one about a week before each Behind The Scenes Working Group meeting, you show up at the Behind The Scenes Working Group meetings and facilitate the deciding of grants (you should have read all the grants, cause likely no one else will have), you email all the applicants to let them know the decision, you get the necessary details from the winners and make sure someone who can write cheques from the forest writes and posts them their cheque, you help them with anything else they might need (typically they will receive a grant for something they want to do at the forest and then will need hand-holding through the maze that is our organisation). And then it begins again.

I don't think it is in your job description, I don't think this comes under "Answering emails/enquiries/phone calls" and it is not "Applying for grants" (this is grants we give, not grants we take), nor is it just "attending working group meetings." But yes, I think you could do it if you want to. I would say that if a suitable volunteer speaks up and says they would like to do it then we should give it to them, give them the experience, get another person more involved. But if no one does then by all means the admins can take it on if they want to.

I've had it with you. If I had an image of a laser gun I would absolutely position it right here in my hand...Ha! I have a real laser absolutely positioned in my hand!

"Bottom-lining" just means making sure the meeting happens and attending it, as far as I know. It was something we came up with at a forest working group meeting a while back, the each working group should have a bottom-liner or two who are also on the fwg. Since the grants person pretty much has to attend these meetings anyway I think it makes sense to roll the two together. I don't think it means you need to be the one facilitating and minuting, but to be honest that did end up being me a lot of the time. I think it'd be great if you did it, Stephen.

I've had it with you. If I had an image of a laser gun I would absolutely position it right here in my hand...Ha! I have a real laser absolutely positioned in my hand!

Please discuss the time for this working group's meetings. It was put at 8.30 for my benefit, of which I'm grateful, but I think it can now be re-arranged to a more suitable time, eg. 7pm, so the admin people and others would be more likely to be able to make it. Up to you guys, and I will come along when I can. The day is also changeable if people have a strong preference.

Okay, so no one has said 7, so the meeting will be at 8 tonight. Since my first post in this thread Orange Slice have withdrawn their application, and we've had two applications, from FOUND magazine and Billy Liar:

Billy Liar is gonna wait until September. Which is a relief cause we already have a really hard choice to make this month. I hope some people can come to this meeting cause I don't wanna have to make this impossible decision myself.

I've had it with you. If I had an image of a laser gun I would absolutely position it right here in my hand...Ha! I have a real laser absolutely positioned in my hand!

Homecoming String Band -- these guys wanted £50 to pay for their website hosting. There didn't seem to be much enthusiasm for this on the forum, and the grant is for £100 any way. We will say no, but we will suggest to them where they can get web hosting for less than £50 per year.

Orange Slice -- much enthusiasm for this on the forum, but some strong detractors also. Initially this looked like quite a strong application cause Orange Slice was already a defined, up and running project, so we would know the money was going to something. But Orange Slice has since closed, and is in the process of trying to be reborn with a different model, so now it is not so clear. We say no, _but_ we would like them to apply again in the future, when things have moved on a bit more and they know better what they are going to be doing.

Found Magazine -- we give them £100.

Billy Liar -- we already agreed with him to hold off his application until September, but we think that the forest may want to spend some of its own money to get a badge maker and that maybe he can use that, then he would not need a grant.

Action: James to talk to the Artist Facilities working group and to Billy Liar about the badge maker before next month's meeting.

New grants person Stephen is going to be the new grants person. Beev has already changed over the email forward. Sean will mail him some instructions so he know what he's doing.

Privacy of the grants forum arguments were heard both ways, I will not attempt to rehash them as it has more or less all been said on the forum already. But suffice to say that we felt is was _not_ a good thing to have our grants discussions on the Internet open for everyone to see and search engines to index, while at the same time we felt it would not be good to close the discussions off to the forest working group only. Beev suggests we create a new permissions group on the bb for people who can see the grants forum, initially this will be everyone who can see the forest working group forum plus anyone who has recently been contributing on the grants forum, in the future more non-forest working group people can be added to it if they take an interest. Also we say that the grants meetings, where the final decisions are actually made, are open meetings, and that few people contribute to the grants forum who do not already have access to the forest working group (although there are a couple of exceptions).

Action: Beev to setup these new permissions.

Dai says that he is not happy with the way grants are decided currently, by the people who attend the meetings only. Perhaps they could be decided on the bb. It is difficult to reach a clear consensus on the bb. Perhaps a poll then.We have been trying recently, at the meetings, to read out the bb comments and give them consideration, perhaps just remembering to do that will be enough. We come to no conclusions so things will stay as they are for now.

I've had it with you. If I had an image of a laser gun I would absolutely position it right here in my hand...Ha! I have a real laser absolutely positioned in my hand!

By the way, one thing we said was that I might recommend the quarterly grant coming up next month to Orange Slice, but I had a read of the quarterly grant page to remember what sort of thing the grant was intended for and it sounds like they don't qualify:

1. The project must take place within the forest itself.2. It must have a longer term element - for example over a long weekend, aweek, two weeks etc. It is not available for one-off performances forexample, no matter how good you might be.3. The project must be creative and/or artistic in nature.

I've had it with you. If I had an image of a laser gun I would absolutely position it right here in my hand...Ha! I have a real laser absolutely positioned in my hand!

I don't understand whether you are being sarcastic or what Chris, but the thing is, I think consensus often works better than a vote or poll even for an atomic decision like the grants. This month it went smooth, we considered the application, and came to a decision together, with good reasons for it all that we all agreed on. At least, all of us who were at the meeting. A vote would give you a winner but it seems to me that it'd be more divisive and opaque than a successful consensus decision, and doesn't have that effect of bringing everyone (everyone who as at the meeting at least) together under a joint decision. Perhaps consensus does work well for the grants, I think.

I've had it with you. If I had an image of a laser gun I would absolutely position it right here in my hand...Ha! I have a real laser absolutely positioned in my hand!

I disagree, in the meeting we can start off the discussion by reading out what was said on the bb. Comments on the bb aren't excluded at all. Of course someone has to remember to do this and then do it, but we've been managing that alright the last couple of months I think. Also, although opinions can be expressed on the bb and even, potentially, people can read other people's opinions and take them into account before posting their own, as a medium it doesn't approach face-to-face in this regard, it is much more tempting to just say what you think and be done with it. I think it's often important to follow up bb discussions with face-to-face before coming to an important decision.

I just feel that voting is about everyone just slapping down their potentially ignorant opinion in a poll, there's no encouragement to listen to all the arguments and try to come to a joint, informed decision, it's the tyranny of the masses, the BBC Have Your Say of decision making processes.

I've had it with you. If I had an image of a laser gun I would absolutely position it right here in my hand...Ha! I have a real laser absolutely positioned in my hand!